Dr. Michael David, assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia, said contamination of ambulance oxygen cylinders is not widely discussed.
“This paper raises the problem of these specific objects being contaminated by MRSA and resulting in a previously unaddressed reservoir of MRSA in ambulances,” he told Reuters Health. “This observation importantly may result in new standard procedures to clean these objects with an antiseptic between uses.”
The study didn’t look at actual transmission rates, so it’s unclear whether anyone actually became infected from bacteria on these tanks. Also, Gibson points out, the samples only came from a single EMS station, and at only one point in time.
Still, he concludes, “Oxygen cylinders appear [likely to carry] MRSA. The development of universal disinfection protocols for oxygen equipment could help reduce the risk of patient infection due to cross-contamination.”
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